A recall effort aimed at left-wing Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao has been successful, with angry residents of the crime-ridden California city a step closer to holding the Democrat to account.
Sheng Thao will face a historic recall election in November amid mounting civic fury over her failure to stem the growing crime situation in Oakland.
The Democrat lawmaker is the first mayor in the city’s history to be up for recall, after a campaign to oust her gained more than 40,000 signatures, the Daily Mail reports.
‘In just a year, Thao’s incompetence and dishonesty accelerated Oakland’s decline, causing longstanding businesses to close and generational families to leave,’ the Oakland United to Recall Sheng Thao (OUST) campaign website states.
The city’s 51st mayor has been the target of criticism since she fired Oakland Police Department Chief LeRonne Armstrong, who had criticized “defund the police” and taken a tough approach to crime.
Organizers knew they had to be careful about signatures as they worked towards their target, as Pollak of Breitbart News previously reported.
A recall effort against George Soros-backed Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón was disqualified in 2022 by county workers who claimed there were too many invalid signatures.
Oakland voters have already gathered enough signatures to qualify a recall of Soros-backed Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price for the November ballot, according to the Chronicle.
Oakland residents were driven to the recall move against a backdrop of an area rocked by violent crime in recent months, including murders which have soared from 78 in 2019 to 126 last year.
Crime overall increased by 18 percent in 2023 with property crime up 17 percent and violent crime up 21 percent, the Mail reports.
And in the first four months of 2024 residential robberies soared by 118 percent on the same period last year.
Sheng Thao was elected as mayor of Oakland in 2022 and started her term in January of 2023.
